I, _______, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; So help me God.

"Constitutional oaths are common for elected officials and government employees, including the governor, the Legislature and members of our law enforcement and our military," [Rep. Bob Thorpe] told The Republic. "It is my hope that if Arizona students are given the opportunity to also take a simple, Constitutional oath, that this will inspire them to learn more about our Constitutional form of government and the rich history of our nation and founding."

I can't be the only one finding deep deep levels of comedy in the statement "learn more about our Constitutional form of government".

I think there can be no real question that there are still areas, particularly in the South, replete with..... issues. Shoot, I think the plaintiff in this case was an Alabama county that just had a redistricting plan rejected by the federal courts just a few years before the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA.

But the real fault here lies with Congress. When Congress renewed the act in '06, they didn't update the formula for calculating what states require pre-approval from Congress when changing their voting laws. SCOTUS warned four years ago that Congress' power to regulate voting rights hinged on addressing that formula and the forty years of 'progress' that has occurred since it was created. Congress never took up that mantle, so today's ruling really was inevitable.

Last edited by tifosi77 on Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Guys, that whole spying/Snowden thing has turned into a giant mess that keeps spinning out of control. We are now having harsh words with Russia and China over it. Some idiot named Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said that the information Snowden stole 'belonged to the American people' --- whaaat? The whole problem is that it was revealed to the American people, so it's just the opposite. What a complete cretin. McCain is talking out of his ass. Obama's administration keeps pushing it. No one is talking that what is happening is illegal and unconstitutional, according to FISC's findings which in itself is a slap across Obama's cheek. This whole thing is crazy. Obama and the whole government got caught with their pants down, but instead of apologizing to the American people and changing their routines to be able to keep spying in a limited way to weed out the creeps planning an attack yet without the need to keep records on all of us (that includes my list of Netflix movies, as in creating a profile on me) - well, instead of that, they all keep trying to justify it and make Americans "accept" that it should be the norm now. I am so disappointed with Obama on this.

Yeah - While the Snowden situation seems like an embarrassment for Obama, it's much less difficult for the admin to bark at traditional adversaries than it would be to answer questions on domestic surveillance. I didn't mind the fact that he was overseas at first, but now it is overshadowing the real story by a wide margin.

Again though, this is all related to our foreign policy. I was watching some news show last night where they were discussing that AQ is now in decline and our biggest threat are people who are "self-radicalized", and this is why we need to keep the surveillance state alive. I love that term, "self-radicalized". It's like a zombie apocalypse and people are spontaneously turning into jihadists all around us.

Well, not really. The term "self-radicalized" again speaks to the dehumanizing of muslims. It neatly avoids the question of "why did this person have issues with the US?" and condenses the narrative into a term that implies a level of mental illness that warrants no further analysis.

Bankruptcies resulting from unpaid medical bills will affect nearly 2 million people this year—making health care the No. 1 cause of such filings, and outpacing bankruptcies due to credit-card bills or unpaid mortgages, according to new data. And even having health insurance doesn't buffer consumers against financial hardship.

Sarcastic wrote:Guys, that whole spying/Snowden thing has turned into a giant mess that keeps spinning out of control. We are now having harsh words with Russia and China over it. Some idiot named Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said that the information Snowden stole 'belonged to the American people' --- whaaat? The whole problem is that it was revealed to the American people, so it's just the opposite. What a complete cretin. McCain is talking out of his ass. Obama's administration keeps pushing it. No one is talking that what is happening is illegal and unconstitutional, according to FISC's findings which in itself is a slap across Obama's cheek. This whole thing is crazy. Obama and the whole government got caught with their pants down, but instead of apologizing to the American people and changing their routines to be able to keep spying in a limited way to weed out the creeps planning an attack yet without the need to keep records on all of us (that includes my list of Netflix movies, as in creating a profile on me) - well, instead of that, they all keep trying to justify it and make Americans "accept" that it should be the norm now. I am so disappointed with Obama on this.

Where are all the clowns that were laughing at Romney when he said that Russia was our biggest Geopolitical problem ?

Bankruptcies resulting from unpaid medical bills will affect nearly 2 million people this year—making health care the No. 1 cause of such filings, and outpacing bankruptcies due to credit-card bills or unpaid mortgages, according to new data. And even having health insurance doesn't buffer consumers against financial hardship.

Not just the #1 cause..... they are around half of personal bankruptcy filings.

This is pretty much what I've been saying all along. I don't mean to be all horn tooty, but this has always been a storm in a teacup. And it makes total and complete sense that the IRS would be 'targeting' groups with politically charged names or verbiage in their applications because, well, that's their job. And it also makes total sense that with over 70,000 applications to process that a shortcut would be devised using those keywords to help identify the potential problem children, as it were. And with conservative applications outstripping progressives 2:1, it makes sense that a disproportionate number of conservative groups were scrutinized.

Now...... as has been noted, the IRS is the only arm of the federal government that we have a regular direct interaction with, and it happens every payday and April 15th. As such, it is really the only arm of the government that has a tangible level of power over each of us that we are cognizant of on a daily basis; you pay taxes every hour of your working life, but the DEA or FBI crashing in your door is a remote possibility. (Even if you're a criminal) So the IRS using a ham-handed methodology to do a job they shouldn't be doing in the first place does create a troubling scenario open for the types of abuses Daryl Issa has been fantasizing about for weeks. It all comes down to a 50-year old regulatory change in the enforcement code of these tax-exempt organizations; the law says an organization must be "exclusively" non-political in their activities, while the subsequent enforcement code says "primarily". That takes what should be a binary issue of fact and makes it a nuanced issue of interpretation. Should the IRS even be in the position of making a judgment call on something like this? No.... precisely because it creates a situation where this kind of stupid stuff can occur.

The fix is easy; change the one word in the rule that will bring it in compliance with the law and put an end to this once and for all. The outrage should be the farce of 'non-political' c(4)s spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the electoral process.

Sarcastic wrote:Guys, that whole spying/Snowden thing has turned into a giant mess that keeps spinning out of control. We are now having harsh words with Russia and China over it. Some idiot named Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said that the information Snowden stole 'belonged to the American people' --- whaaat? The whole problem is that it was revealed to the American people, so it's just the opposite. What a complete cretin. McCain is talking out of his ass. Obama's administration keeps pushing it. No one is talking that what is happening is illegal and unconstitutional, according to FISC's findings which in itself is a slap across Obama's cheek. This whole thing is crazy. Obama and the whole government got caught with their pants down, but instead of apologizing to the American people and changing their routines to be able to keep spying in a limited way to weed out the creeps planning an attack yet without the need to keep records on all of us (that includes my list of Netflix movies, as in creating a profile on me) - well, instead of that, they all keep trying to justify it and make Americans "accept" that it should be the norm now. I am so disappointed with Obama on this.

Where are all the clowns that were laughing at Romney when he said that Russia was our biggest Geopolitical problem ?

Yeah, I'll laugh at that. NATO should have been disbanded after the Warsaw Pact ended. Instead, we use it to roll missiles to Russia's doorstep and get indignant when they protest.

Think tanks such as the Project for a New American Century (who's views Romney espouses) are the greatest threats to global stability, peace, and prosperity in the world today; and it's where many of the policies of the past two admins germinated.

Sarcastic wrote:Guys, that whole spying/Snowden thing has turned into a giant mess that keeps spinning out of control. We are now having harsh words with Russia and China over it. Some idiot named Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said that the information Snowden stole 'belonged to the American people' --- whaaat? The whole problem is that it was revealed to the American people, so it's just the opposite. What a complete cretin. McCain is talking out of his ass. Obama's administration keeps pushing it. No one is talking that what is happening is illegal and unconstitutional, according to FISC's findings which in itself is a slap across Obama's cheek. This whole thing is crazy. Obama and the whole government got caught with their pants down, but instead of apologizing to the American people and changing their routines to be able to keep spying in a limited way to weed out the creeps planning an attack yet without the need to keep records on all of us (that includes my list of Netflix movies, as in creating a profile on me) - well, instead of that, they all keep trying to justify it and make Americans "accept" that it should be the norm now. I am so disappointed with Obama on this.

Where are all the clowns that were laughing at Romney when he said that Russia was our biggest Geopolitical problem ?

Yeah, I'll laugh at that. NATO should have been disbanded after the Warsaw Pact ended. Instead, we use it to roll missiles to Russia's doorstep and get indignant when they protest.

Think tanks such as the Project for a New American Century (who's views Romney espouses) are the greatest threats to global stability, peace, and prosperity in the world today; and it's where many of the policies of the past two admins germinated.

Are you saying that Romney is to blame for Putin telling the current administration to go fly a kite ? If so , that is a new twist .

Nope. I was saying that I would laugh at the notion that Russia is our greatest geopolitical threat; and I named a think tank from which helped craft Romney's foreign policy platform as a greater threat. PFNAC's influence is also felt in the Obama admin, btw.